An Indian Nightmare for Australia?

Is this the worst Australian team ever to visit India? As they stare a 'Brownwash', a look at what plagues the Aussies...

1. Inability to Play Spin

Ravichandran Ashwin has taken a staggering 22 wickets and Ravindra Jadeja 17, leaving Australia bamboozled. For all their obsession with planning and strategising, it has become apparent that the Aussies had absolutely no strategy in place on how to tackle spin when they landed in India. It is clear that they didn't learn anything from the way England, in particular Alastair Cook and Kevin Pietersen batted their way to a rare series win on Indian soil. Australia overattacked even when the situation and the conditions demanded application, and paid the price.

2. Loss of Pace

The Aussies have always boasted of a world-class pace artillery. This time too, they came with a bunch of raw, but exciting fast bowlers. While James Pattinson started the series with a bang, getting two early scalps at Chennai, he slowly tapered off. The biggest disappointment has been Mitchell Starc. The left-arm seamer lost his deadly incoming delivery till the third Test, and has taken just two wickets while giving away 200 runs in the bargain. Peter Siddle too was ordinary till Mohali, where he bowled with a lot more purpose and vigour, taking 5-94 in the first innings.

3. Turn For the Worse

The Australian tweakers were never expected to emulate what Graeme Swann and Monty Panesar did in India, but so pedestrian were they, that the team management were constantly left wondering if it was a good idea to even play two of them. How it must have pained Shane Warne to watch this lot dish out trash! Offie Nathan Lyon has been the best of the lot so far, and he has managed just six wickets @ 65.83, which says a lot about the Oz plight in this department. Xavier Doherty proved Stuart MacGill right that he isn't a Test bowler yet, while the less said about Steve Smith, the better.

4. Over-Officious Team Management

Going into the third Test trailing by a 0-2 margin, the last thing Australia needed was an over-zealous team management punishing players like Shane Watson, Usman Khawaja, Pattinson and Mitchell Johnson just because they failed to submit a report to coach Mickey Arthur. It prompted Watson to leave for Australia to attend the birth of his child in a huff, and exposed massive rifts in the camp. The episode reflected the poor man-management skills of the coach and skipper Clarke and distracted others.

5. Clarke Over-Burdened

Clarke is the backbone of this Australian team, and it is evident now that if he flops, they collapse in a heap. Coming into this series in top form, Clarke slammed 130 & 91 in the first two Tests, but succumbed to Ravindra Jadeja as many as five times! The stress of holding the innings together every time seemed to tell on their best player.